From the 1970s thru the 1990s, there was no hipper, no more outrageous comedy in print than The National Lampoon, the groundbreaking humor magazine that pushed the limits of taste and acceptability – and then pushed them even harder. Parodying everything from politics, religion, entertainment and the whole of American lifestyle, the Lampoon eventually went on to branch into successful radio shows, record albums, live stage revues and movies, including Animal House and National Lampoon’s Vacation. The publication launched the careers of legends like John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Christopher Guest and Gilda Radner, who went on to gigs at Saturday Night Live and stardom.

The long in the works reboot of the Chevy Chase-led 1980s comedy film series "Fletch" may have gotten a new lease on life thanks to the bankruptcy of Relativity Studios.

The project was originally setup at Miramax, moved to Warner Bros. Pictures, and at least half of it ended up at Relativity. With the company having filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they are seeking ways to keep themselves active during this period with their rights to the "Fletch" franchise being one of their more valuable assets.

THR reports that the fate of the property is unclear at this point. Their current deal requires a film to start pre-production by the end of the year and insiders for the studio insist it is staying with them.

However, the trade has also heard from two sources saying that when Relativity released the rights to the Natalie Portman western "Jane Got a Gun,
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The Fletch remake is one that has been around for ever, as it has kicked between various directors, actors and movie studios. It's spent its life lingering in development Hell, but Relativity's recently announced bankruptcy may have just breathed new life into this beloved detective comedy. First at Mirimax, and then shuffled over to Warner Bros., Fletch finally found its home at Relativity. But like their Crow remake, it had trouble getting off the ground. Now their financial woes seem to be forcing their hand. The studio is seeking out another studio to help get Fletch moving once again.

Fletch is being included in a potential deal that will keep Relativity active through their Chapter 11 crisis. THR has the report, which sees Fletch as one of the more attractive elements in helping the corporation go through restructuring in its attempt to find new investors. As of now, the studio is
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"We can do anything we want!" Magnolia Pictures has unveiled an official trailer for Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, a documentary telling The Story of the National Lampoon, the comedy magazine from the 60s. This fantastic and funny documentary takes a look at one of the original comedy magazines that started it all, featuring John Belushi, Chevy Chase and many others. We featured the original poster for this film (seen below) and reviewed it at Sundance this year (read Ethan's glowing review). Some of the appearances in the trailer include Judd Apatow and John Landis, but mostly it's all about the magazine covers and art they show. I'm still amazed at some of what they got away with. You don't want to miss this!
The trailer for Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon, via YouTube:
Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of National Lampoon is directed by
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Read More: Sundance: How 'Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead' Director Pulled Off a Documentary About The National Lampoon
No one was safe when it came to National Lampoon's jokes. The boundary-pushing, one-of-a-kind publication is the focus of Douglas Tirola's documentary, "Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of National Lampoon."
The documentary covers the founding of the magazine by two Harvard graduates, its rise to fame, expansion to radio shows, albums and other mediums and its eventual demise. Through never-before seen interviews during the magazine's prime and pictures from the magazine itself, Tirola paints a picture of the outrageous world of the magazine during its 28-year lifespan. It also features interviews with prominent names in comedy like Judd Apatow, Kevin Bacon, Chevy Chase, John Goodman and Bill Murray.
Check out the hilarious, Nsfw trailer above.
Read More: Meet the 2015 Sundance Filmmakers #33: Timely 'Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead'
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While this weekend's "Vacation" doesn't come stamped with the National Lampoon brand, it definitely continues a lineage. Not only is it the latest installment in a series that started in 1983, it's the revival of a certain kind of anarchic spirit that was first launched not on the big screen, but in the bawdy pages of a magazine. And a documentary is coming along to share the history of this comedy landmark.
"Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story Of The National Lampoon" (read our review) brings together famous faces like Judd Apatow, Kevin Bacon, Chevy Chase, John Goodman, Bill Murray, and more to tell the story of the little comedy rag that could, which soon became a big and sometimes controversial success that carried over to many media platforms. Here's the official synopsis:
From the 1970s thru the 1990s, there was no hipper, no more outrageous comedy in print than The National Lampoon,
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Two big sequels for you this weekend namely .Vacation. and .Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation.. In .Vacation,. Ed Helms steps into the role of Rusty Griswold, all grown-up with a dysfunctional family of his own. And he wants to take his wife (Christina Applegate) and two kids (the meek and mild James and the vulgar and funny Kevin) to the place where it all began, Walley World!

In .Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation,. Tom Cruise returns to the role of Ethan Hunt but this time, he must face the Syndicate and its rogue agents and skilled assassins. This one.s directed by Oscar winner Christopher McQuarrie (wrote .The Usual Suspects,. worked with Cruise in .Jack Reacher.).

After two straight weeks atop the box office, Marvel's Ant-Man will surely be dethroned this weekend, with the arrival of two new releases, Paramount's Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation and New Line Cinema's Vacation. Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation will easily take the top spot, somewhere in the low $50 million range, in its first week in theaters. The fifth installment of the lucrative Mission: Impossible franchise is heading into theaters with a strong wave of critical buzz, with a 93% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Even though Vacation debuted on Wednesday, and the reviews haven't been favorable (25% "Rotten" rating), it should still easily take the second place spot.

Rusty Griswold takes his own family on a road trip to “Walley World” in order to spice things up with his wife and reconnect with his sons.

It isn’t very encouraging when the opening credits of a comedy highlight butt cracks and enlarged horse penises during a montage of postcard photographs, but at least it was a sign to set expectations very low for this sequel/reboot of National Lampoon’s Vacation, now shortened down to simply Vacation. It’s a shame because the movie has a good amount of laughs, but the problem is that it consistently transitions to unfunny scenes featuring an over-reliance on gross-out humor and lazy writing. Seeing as
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This probably wasn't the reaction Warner Bros. was expecting when they moved the new comedy "Vacation" from October to July. The fifth big screen edition of the franchise that helped make Chevy Chase a star was supposed to be a summer comedy "surprise." This year's "Meet the Millers" or "Let's Be Cops," but, um, actually funny. That doesn't seem to be the case.
Directed by the "Horrible Bosses" writing team of John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, "Vacation" earned just a B Cinemascore from audiences polled after seeing it (an average score is actually an A). Critics weren't that kind either. It landed with a terrible 33 out of 100 grade on Metacritic and scored just 26% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes which is pretty rotten. And, no, that's not good for its long term prospects at the box office. Still, is it really that bad? Is "Vacation" really one of the worst movies of the year?
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The preview showings began at 8 p.m. at 2,764 locations. The gross is comparable to “Mad Max,” which earned $3.7 million in evening shows; “World War’s” $3.6 million; and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes'” $4.1 million.

Paramount’s fifth “Mission: Impossible” expands to 3,956 locations on Friday. The studio’s extensive marketing campaign has centered on the 53-year-old Cruise clinging to the side of an Airbus A400 plane during takeoff.

The action adventure, which carries a hefty $150 million budget, is on pace to open to $40 million over the weekend. Some analysts think that number could rise to $50 million, given the strong critical support for the film.

The next generation of Griswolds is at it again. “Vacation,” starring Ed Helms (“The Hangover” films) and Christina Applegate (the “Anchorman” films), takes the family on the road for another ill-fated adventure. Following in his father’s footsteps and hoping for some much-needed family bonding, a grown-up Rusty Griswold (Helms) surprises his wife, Debbie (Applegate), and their two sons with a cross-country trip back to America’s “favorite family fun park,” Walley World.

Many of you are lamenting the remake of National Lampoon's Vacation on grounds that classics should never be updated. While the Ed Helms version does appear to be a sequel rather than a remake, that doesn't change the fact that the original Chevy Chase movie is one of the best comedies of all time. Plus, it also represents one of the most memorable film vacations ever. I mean, who didn't...
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Vacation is lazy, idiotic, and gross — and I laughed my ass off at it. A totally unnecessary sequel to a long-dormant, totally unnecessary series, this latest entry in the Griswold Saga — which kicked off back in 1983 with National Lampoon’s Vacation, starring Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo — doesn’t even try to distinguish itself. It starts off with a version of the series’ signature tune, Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road” (have any horror films featured a serial killer who plays this song over and over again?), and demonstrates all the previous films’ (in)attention to production values, craft, storytelling, and visual elegance. This time, it’s the Griswolds’ now-middle-age son, Rusty (Ed Helms), who has to pile his family into an unlikely vehicle and travel across the country — once again — to Walley World. What might have been a scarring memory for any other family is, for Rusty, an example
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It should come as no surprise that Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation is my predicted winner this weekend - the last one was in 2011 and this is the summer's grand action finale. The problem with looking at the previous version is it had a soft opening during the Christmas season, putting up weekends of 12/29/29/19 - meaning its results bore no real resemblance to how a summer film operates. I'm reluctant to just pile that $89 million four-weekend total into a big ball, because there were clearly still early adopters and stragglers over the course of a month. As such, my prediction of $51 million sort of middles the whole enterprise, condensing four Christmas weekends down into two summer ones.
Vacation is the other new release, but there's not much precedent to go on, even with it being a sort of sequel. The closest comparison is really just "comedy" here, so I've decided
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The first-day number signals that “Vacation” may fall short of recent projections of an opening of about $30 million over five days at 3,310 theaters. “Vacation,” which carries a relatively modest $31 million budget, does not represent a big risk for New Line.

The movie is launching 32 years after the original. Ed Helms plays the grown-up Rusty Griswold, who decides to take his own family to the fictional California theme park Walley World — with disastrous results. Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo return as Rusty’s parents.

“Vacation,” which has received mostly negative reviews, with a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, marks the
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Arriving a few short months after Brett Morgen’s “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck” and Asif Kapadia’s “Amy,” Derik Murray and Brent Hodge’s “I Am Chris Farley” is the summer’s third documentary study of a gifted entertainer who self-destructed in the prime of life. Of the three, it’s by far the most upbeat, which is both logical (a film about one of the most immediately lovable comic talents of the last two decades shouldn’t be totally dour) and strangely off-putting, as Farley’s story seems to be a sadder and more complicated one than the filmmakers appear fully comfortable exploring. Worth watching for its trove of emotional testimonies from family and friends — including an atypically forthcoming Lorne Michaels and Adam Sandler — the pic is somewhat defanged by its surface-level approach and standard-issue filmmaking style, making for an earnest yet incomplete portrait that should gather
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Vacation – another discombobulated assortment of immaturity, nostalgic pandering and weightless storytelling. The slow death of mainstream comedy, if you will. Every stupid graffitied phallus and perverse lake of shit is calculated with the cheapest of intentions, because juvenile potty humor seems to have become an underwhelming norm across comedy’s repetitive landscape. John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein promise early on that their unwarranted reboot will stand completely on its own (through yet Another meta-laced conversation), but their efforts are less convincing than Randy Quaid’s fake sex tape. Why? Because No Vacation movie has treated its audience with this little respect. And Vegas Vacation is nothing to brag about, I might add.

In this year’s vacation-from-hell comedy, Rusty Griswold has transformed from a tall, lanky nutcase (played most recently by Ethan Embry) to his All-American-Joe fate as an economy airline pilot (played now by Ed Helms
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Hollywood is taking another summer trip back in time with “Vacation,” an R-rated sequel to the 1983 comedy starring Chevy Chase that debuts Wednesday. While some suggest that recycling proven franchises signals creative malaise, the strategy has served the industry well at the box office this year, producing one of its biggest success stories ever.
Ed Helms plays a grown-up Rusty, the son of Chase’s Clark Griswold in the original film and the head of the Wally World-bound clan in Warner Bros.’ raunchy redo, which also stars Christina Applegate, Leslie Mann and Chris Hemsworth. Chase and Beverly D’Angelo make cameo appearances in.
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